Flood: We Lose 5% Of GDP Yearly To Reactive Disaster Responses-FG

• Shettima Launches Preemptive Action Plan

As the rainy season sets in, with its attendant torrential downpours, the federal government has taken proactive steps to prevent flooding through strategic measures to enhance disaster preparedness and risk management across the country.

This is even as the Nigerian government lamented that the country loses close to 5% of her Gross Domestic Product (GDP) annually to reactive disaster responses.

To this effect, Vice President Kashim Shettima on Wednesday launched Nigeria’s Anticipatory Action Framework, designed to shift disaster management from reactive responses to proactive preparedness by leveraging early warnings, local empowerment, and pre-arranged financing to save lives and livelihoods.

According to a statement by his spokesperson Stanley Nkwocha, Mr Shettima explained that the new framework is built on three strategic pillars, including “early warning systems powered by satellite technology and delivered through community-based networks to provide life-saving information in real time.”

A key component of the strategy involves establishing a dedicated trigger group comprising meteorological and emergency management agencies that will synthesise data to enable forecasts up to two weeks in advance.

Speaking during a framework validation workshop held at the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC), Office of the National Security Adviser in Abuja, VP Shettima described the framework as a timely intervention to confront the rising threats of climate-induced disasters such as floods, which affected over five million Nigerians in 2024.

“These disasters are no longer distant threats. They are here, knocking at our doors, sweeping through our streets, flooding our homes, and testing not only our moral sensitivity but the depth of our preparation,” he said.

The Vice President stressed the urgent need to dump the costly and inadequate reactive approach to disasters for a more proactive measure.

He stated, “For decades, our response has been reactive. We wait for the waters to rise, for the homes to vanish, and then we scramble for relief. This late arrival of support costs more and saves fewer lives.

“We lose close to 5% of our GDP every year to reactive disaster responses. This approach is not only unsustainable, it is also deeply unjust to the most vulnerable among us. This is why we must act before disasters unfold”.